


Long-Distance Rates Apply

by Xparrot



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos in the Desert Otherworld, Fluff and Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Phone Calls, Physics Metaphors, Post-Episode: e049 Old Oak Doors Part B, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 03:39:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1883919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/Xparrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The video, when they Skype, is clearer, though the sound is delayed on Carlos's side. Or rather, the video is premature; at Carlos's best estimate, he receives the visual transmissions ten seconds before they're recorded.  He's getting used to seeing Cecil's expressions in reaction to what he's just about to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long-Distance Rates Apply

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be getting back to "From the Ground Up" shortly, but like every other Night Vale ficcer right now I needed to get out some fraction of my feels before I exploded. Spoilers for "Old Oak Doors Part B"; wailing and gnashing of teeth included at no extra charge.

Manifesting is harder than it initially seemed, when Dana was guiding him; or perhaps it's more difficult now with the doors closed. Carlos would call Dana for advice, but Night Vale's new mayor has more important things to do than help a single lost outsider scientist.

He has his phone, however and a Skype app, so he can see Cecil as well as talk on occasion. Not too much. The phone's battery is holding steady at 97%, and his last service bill in Night Vale was for February 2038, so Carlos isn't overly concerned about running out of minutes. But time seems to work here even less effectively than in Night Vale, and after his third attempt to call Cecil to wish him good night, only to interrupt his show instead, Carlos gave up trying.

He texts sometimes. Cecil always texts back, and calls when he can, though he's almost as busy as Dana now, putting Night Vale back together. Plus, from the snippets of broadcasts Carlos has managed to pick up, Station Management is more temperamental than ever. So he tries to keep things short with Cecil when Cecil might be on the clock, even if Cecil never says anything about it.

Cecil has gotten a new carrier now that Strex Communications has closed, which offers better transdimensional service, so his phone is less prone to bleeding or crawling off into corners when he calls Carlos. It's not a perfect connection, however. Cecil can usually hear Carlos all right, but the audio signal from Cecil is prone to interference. 

The video, when they Skype, is clearer, though the sound is delayed on Carlos's side. Or rather, the video is premature; at Carlos's best estimate, he receives the visual transmissions ten seconds before they're recorded. He's getting used to seeing Cecil's expressions in reaction to what he's just about to say; in some respects it's a communication facilitator.

Such as now, the way Cecil just started to smile fondly, Carlos probably says something about science. He considers a moment, then offers, "I've been analyzing the sand here; it's of an unusual composition."

 _"Didn't --- get enough sand --- Night Vale?"_ Cecil asks, and even through the static Carlos can hear in his voice the smile he just saw Cecil make. Though on his cellphone's screen, that smile is fading, as Cecil's lips move in words Carlos won't hear for another ten seconds.

"But this sand is different," Carlos says, "it doesn't appear to be silicon-based—if I only had access to equipment, a lab..." and oh, that was it, what made Cecil's smile diminish.

There's a momentary pause in the audio—not static but silence—and then Cecil says, _"You will soon ---. When you --- back here."_

"Yes," Carlos says, "soon—as soon as possible," as he peers at Cecil's face on the screen. Cecil's brow is drawn down as his mouth moves again, and Carlos regrets not including lip-reading among his disciplines. He would have a better idea of what to say if he knew what Cecil was saying in response to it. "I've been searching for an egress; even if the doors are no longer present, there ought to be a way to breach the dimensional barrier. Since I don't actually belong here anymore than I belonged in Night Vale—"

 _"—You belong here,"_ Cecil says heatedly. On the video screen ten seconds in the future, his brow is still lowered, though he's stopped speaking. _"Whatever --- time-space continuum believes,_ this _is --- you belong."_

"The time-space continuum doesn't actually maintain beliefs about me or anything else, as it's a metaphysical conceptualization," Carlos says, and that was probably why Cecil was frowning. But it's only the truth. Carlos forges ahead, "At any rate, regardless of where the physical nature of my being places me, Night Vale was where I felt...that is..." He trails off, because Cecil is still frowning and Carlos doesn't want to make that confession and have Cecil frown at it.

Though Cecil's face is changing, softening, and maybe there's a touch of liquid glittering in the corner of his eye as his lips move. And Carlos, seeing that tear, knows he's the one who is going to cause it, even though he's not there to reach out his hand and wipe it away.

For a metaphysical conceptualization, the time-space continuum can be awfully cruel. If Carlos weren't a scientist, he'd feel betrayed.

Or maybe he feels more betrayed, being a scientist. Understanding, as he does, the immensity of the distance in space and time both which divides them. 

"I miss you," he blurts out.

 _"I miss --- too,"_ Cecil replies, as ten seconds in the future he wipes away that tear and calmly replies to whatever Carlos is about to say.

It's his calm which gives Carlos the strength to say what he has to. What he's been meaning to for some time now, insofar as time means anything here. Since he realized the scope of his situation. "Cecil, I'm trying—I'm trying my best, with all the science in my possession; but I don't know how long it's actually going to take me to escape this dimension. Or make it back to Night Vale. I hoped it was going to be easy, but after investigating scientifically, it appears that it is not going to be easy."

 _"--- know,"_ Cecil says, calmly. _"Nothing that is --- is easy."_

Cecil's face on the screen has frozen—probably a glitch in the video transmission. That makes it easier, in some ways. Carlos draws a breath. "It may take me a long time to get back to Night Vale. Maybe a very, very long time. So, if you—if you don't want to wait—I know how frustrating and unsatisfying long-distance relationships can be, so I'll entirely understand, if you'd rather—if you want to..."

On the video, Cecil is moving again, his mouth shaping a single sharp syllable. Carlos trails off, and his phone is silent for a full ten seconds of shock, before he hears Cecil say, clearly, _"No!"_ And then, softer, _"No, I don't want to."_

"We could try again, if I do make it back," Carlos offers, wretchedly because he can see Cecil's face, but he has to try. "I just—I don't want—"

 _"You don't want to --- with me anymore?"_ and as painful as it was to see Cecil's face, to hear him say it is a thousand times worse.

"No—I do, definitely, but—I don't want you to..." 

Carlos knows next to nothing about psychology or social relationships. But he knows about physics. About the significance of distance. Gravity falls off at the inverse of the square of the distance between two objects; magnetism falls off at the inverse-cubed.

Once two objects are far enough apart, nothing can maintain a bond between them. There is no force in the universe strong enough to draw them back together, once a great enough distance divides them.

Carlos has tried long-distance relationships before. He remembers what it was like, after Todd graduated and left for his doctoral program, still insisting it could work between them, expecting that Carlos would follow him soon enough. Carlos remembers how Todd kept calling him at all hours, forgetting the time difference and waking him up or interrupting his experiments to talk about how his studies were going, who he was meeting, how exciting it was. How Carlos needed to hurry up and get his degree and join him.

Carlos remembers the relief he felt, to be able to hang up on those calls and get back to his own life. Remembers what it was like, to be in a relationship that his favorite part of was being able to say goodbye.

Not that he'd disliked Todd, but though they'd both been scientists they'd never found much to talk about outside of bed. And it had been so difficult, trying to align their lives when their existences were so separated by time and space. Like trying to establish an orbit around a planet that was no longer there. When Todd had finally met someone else and called it off, a couple months after leaving, Carlos had tried to tell himself he was happy only because his friend was happy, and not because he was so glad to be free of that contrived association.

The time and space which divides him from Cecil now is so much greater, so many orders of magnitude that Carlos can't properly compute it, not without better equipment than a cellphone and a few miscellaneous meters.

And Cecil isn't a scientist, and Carlos isn't a radio host; and while Cecil is the most fascinating person Carlos has ever met, living in the most interesting place Carlos has ever heard of, transdimensional deserts of non-silicate sand included...Carlos is all too painfully aware that Cecil's interest in science is largely predicated on his interest in Carlos. In Carlos's supposedly perfect hair and strong jaw and everything else which Cecil can only see occasionally over a tiny cellphone camera, now.

"I don't want you to feel obliged to wait for me," Carlos says. "To think that you're...committed, just because we moved in together. Because I'm not there now, I can't live with you now. We don't share a home anymore. What we had—we don't have that anymore, and I have no idea when we'll be able to get it back. When I'll be able to come back."

_"But Carlos, didn't --- hear? 'Absence makes the liver --- and the heart grow fonder..."_

"That's an unproven axiom." Carlos doesn't look at the Cecil on his screen, reacting to what he will say now. He pinches the bridge of his nose to stop the burn in his eyes, swallows the lump in his throat and makes himself say, "You shouldn't have to wait—I can't possibly ask you to wait, not when I can't even properly estimate how long it will be. It's not reasonable or fair to you, and I don't want you to resent me for it. If you have a chance to be happy, then you should—"

 _"—But I_ am _happy,_ " Cecil says, and that for once comes through clearly, along with the astonishment in his voice, the utter confusion. _"I'll be_ happier _when you get back, obviously—but I'm happy now. I'm happy that I can talk to you, and you can talk to me, and I can even see you a little, and know you're all right. I'm so happy to know you're still in my life, and that you'll be back here, back home, eventually, however long it takes. And I'm even happier knowing that you want to return. Even if you're not here, it makes me happy to know that you want to be. That as scientifically interesting as the place you are now is, you still want to come back to Night Vale, perhaps almost as much as I want you to come back..."_

That last sentence might hold a hint of a question. Carlos denies it, "No, I don't."

 _"...You don't...?"_ and Cecil sounds heartbroken—but on the video ten seconds from now, he's somehow smiling.

"Not 'almost', no," Carlos says. "Scientifically speaking, I want to be back in Night Vale more than you want me to be back," because by whatever measure is used to compare their emotions, Carlos knows that there can be no stronger feeling than the longing in his own heart.

 _"Not possible,"_ Cecil says, and his smile is audible. _"Maybe --- same."_

"All right," Carlos concedes, "the exact same amount."

And it's not until then that he gets it. That he recalls that under certain specific circumstances, space doesn't matter; time doesn't matter. Quantum entanglement—two particles with only a single quantum state, any measurement of one exactly matching the other, no matter how far apart they are separated. Spin or polarization or momentum, always matched. Or feeling; and maybe that matched feeling is how they were entangled, or maybe their entanglement causes the matched feelings.

He misses Cecil as much as Cecil misses him; he is as far from Cecil as Cecil is from him. Cecil is still in Night Vale, but he's just as far from home—from _their_ home, which won't exist again until Carlos is there with him. However long that takes.

 _"--- want to help ---,"_ Cecil is saying, between static fizzes. _"Or if I ---, still want to --- with you. But tell me if you --- and I'm bothering you—"_

"You're not," Carlos says immediately. "I want to talk to you—even if I'm in the middle of an experiment, or climbing the mountain, or whatever I'm doing—as long as you have a chance to talk." Even if talking won't close the spatial distance between them, every second that goes by is one second closer to when they'll be reunited. And time always passes more quickly when he's talking with Cecil—subjectively, at least, but here or in Night Vale, that's the only time that matters. "It's always good to hear from you."

And given that Carlos feels that way himself, then it's no surprise, that Cecil goes, _"Oh, neat!"_ with that particular giddy excitement which Carlos hasn't heard since he entered the House. _"And you --- call me anytime, if --- can."_

"But I don't want to interrupt your show."

 _"I don't care if you interrupt! I'll tell Station Management to --- their --- in my --- if I have to,"_ Cecil says, lightly but not a joke, not by the expression Carlos saw him make. _"Anytime."_

"Okay," Carlos says, feeling absurdly warmed, in a way that has nothing to do with desert heat. "I will."

Cecil's smile changes, falls away, and it breaks Carlos's heart a little, to know what he must say now. "But I should be getting back to climbing now, if I'm going to make it back up this mountain. And you have a show to do, right?"

 _"Yes,_ " Cecil says, sighing. _"But --- you back afterwards?"_

"Yes, please do," Carlos says. He watches on the little screen, as ten seconds in the future, Cecil taps the button on his laptop to close the call, then leans back and pulls his legs up onto the futon, wraps his arms around them as he puts his head down on his folded-up knees.

 _"I --- you,"_ Cecil says.

On the screen, Cecil's shoulders rise and fall in a shuddering breath, but only once; he's already uncurling, when Carlos says, to the Cecil he saw ten seconds ago, "I love you, too."

 _"See --- later."_ The call ends with a click and Carlos's phone goes dark. He touches its smooth screen for a second, where Cecil's face just was.

Then he pockets his phone and raises his head toward the mountain. He's got a long way to go, before they make it home.


End file.
